


Run

by finwritesthings



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Gen, Mild Gore, One Shot, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 17:49:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 709
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13664151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/finwritesthings/pseuds/finwritesthings
Summary: Running from monsters is harder than you think.





	Run

He could feel the desperation washing through his body, the ache his lungs and legs, the tightness in his stomach, the racing of his heart, how his world felt like it was spinning. His entire body pleaded with him to stop, begged him to breathe, to relax, to slow down. He didn’t listen. He  _ couldn’t _ . He didn’t care about the pain screaming through every muscle, he didn’t care about the fire in his lung that bloomed with every inhale. He had to keep running, he’d  _ promised _ .

 

His mind began to swim with images of blood-spattered floors, twisted and gnarled limbs, empty eyes. The tears poured down his cheek as his stomach tightened and his heart stuttered. Emotions raged through him like the frothing water of an ocean storm. He couldn’t bear to play those images over and over and over and over. 

 

_ Maybe, _ if he got far enough away he could forget them all together. He pushed harder.

 

He didn’t know where he was going and he didn’t care, he just had to run. Run away from the danger, away from the torture, away from the memories.

 

Until he could run no more. He felt his foot hit not-so-solid ground followed by a searing pain burning through his ankle. A cry tore from his already raw throat, his body giving in, crumpling to the ground. He sobbed, his tears soaking the dirt and leaves, his blood did the same. His trembling hands pushed him up with weak arms. His stomach rolled as he stared at the metal teeth buried in his flesh, his bone. The rational part of his brain knew that trying to pry it off would not work - the rational part of his brain had long been dormant. His useless hands scrambled at the metal to no avail. Useless, useless, useless. He was useless now just as he had been when he was needed most. The curve of his spine was outlined perfectly by taut skin and thin clothing as he crumpled forwards.   
  
Reality settled in slowly, like the fall breeze turning to crippling winter winds. He was never going to escape, he was going to die here, in this quiet forest, afraid: just as they did.   
  
His mind began to catch up with the damages done to his body: lungs spasming with every breath, head throbbing in time with his heart, and his heart. The organ pumped blood quickly through his body, trying to fix everything all at once, but that was not what hurt most. It was his heart that had shattered. Shattered the moment he held those cold, stiffened hands in his own. The one that begged him to get up, to not fail those hands again. The one that ached more than any torture he had been put through. The one that could not be fixed.

 

The sound of boots treading through dead, dried leave made its way to him. The sounds grew much closer before he registered the weight of that sound, the danger of it. Fear shot down his spine like a freezing cold drop of water down the back of his shirt. Spreading slowly through his ribs, his lungs, his head. The tremors returned with a shattering force. Every instinct in his body begged him to get up, run further. He did not.

 

There was blinding light, bright and burning his retinas, warm and wavering as it grew closer. His gaze slid over to it, fear and curiosity battling within him. The light bobbed through the trees, and as it grew closer,  _ he saw them _ . Figures, familiar figures,  _ safe _ figures. The voices drifted through his head like fish in the rapids of a stream, distinct and beautiful but almost impossible to catch. He was safe.

 

But he never escaped. He knew it didn’t matter where he went, it would always haunt him. In every waking hour of his life: the darkened corners of quiet rooms, the empty silence of empty spaces, in every breath he took that they didn’t, but worst of all would be his dreams. He knew that was the one place he couldn’t fill with noise, the one place he couldn’t force the thoughts away. There was nowhere to hide when the monster was your own mind.

**Author's Note:**

> So I did this for a sprint, but ironically enough was kinda also inspired by the Shia Labeouf song by Rob Cantor.


End file.
